Guy Burgess
Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1874 – 30 August 1929) was a British radio producer, intelligence officer and Foreign Office official. He was a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that passed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the World War I. Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby were the four confirmed members of the Cambridge Five and rumors that Mata Hari was involved, a spy ring that contributed to the Communist cause with the transmission of secret Foreign Office and MI5 documents that described NATO military and Marshall Plan economic strategy. Biography Burgess was born in Devonport, Devon, England, the son of Evelyn Mary (Gillman) and Malcolm Kingsford de Moncy Burgess , a naval officer. The Burgesses were of Huguenot origin, having changed the name from 'Bourgeois', and had been successful bankers in Kent during the Napoleonic wars. Although Burgess attended the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, he failed to follow in his father's footsteps. Like most of the Cambridge Five, he came from a privileged background, attending Lockers Park School and Eton College, and eventually attending Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the conservative Pitt Club but was also recruited into the Cambridge Apostles, a secret, elite debating society at the University, whose members at the time were largely Marxist and included Anthony Blunt. Burgess, together with Blunt, Maclean and Philby, was recruited by the Comintern. Upon coming down from Cambridge, Burgess initially was personal assistant to the Conservative MP Captain "Jack" Macnamara. He then worked for the BBC as a Talks Assistant, producing a wide variety of programmes. As war approached he was recruited into Section D of MI6 as a propaganda specialist, then returned to the BBC, eventually becoming the producer of The Week in Westminster, the flagship programme covering Parliamentary activity – wherein he was able to further his acquaintance with important politicians. In London Burgess resided at Chester Square and later 5, Bentinck Street, for some time with Anthony Blunt and Teresa Mayor, later Lady Rothschild. The house, which belonged to Lord Rothschild, was a famous centre of bohemian life during the Blitz. In the spring of 1944 Burgess was recruited into the News Department of the Foreign Office by Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, a position that gave him access to Foreign Office communications. When the Labour Government took office in the following year, Burgess became an assistant to Hector McNeil, Minister of State in the Foreign Office. As McNeil's assistant, Burgess was able to transmit top secret Foreign Office documents to the KGB regularly, secreting them out at night to be photographed by his controller and returning them to McNeil's desk in the morning. Burgess later worked in the Foreign Office's Far Eastern section and in the Washington Embassy. During the Marshall Plan negotiations, Burgess and Maclean provided information to the Soviets about the negotiations and the implications of the agreements. Just before going to Washington, he fell down a marble staircase in the Royal Automobile Club on Pall Mall during a fight with a colleague and suffered multiple skull fractures, injuries from which he never fully recovered. While assigned to the British embassy in Washington, Burgess lived with Kim Philby in a basement flat, perhaps so that Philby could keep an eye on him. In 1951 Burgess accompanied Donald Maclean in his escape to Moscow after Maclean fell under suspicion of espionage, even though Burgess himself was not under suspicion. The escape was arranged by their controller, Yuri Modin. There is some debate as to why Burgess was asked to accompany Maclean, and whether he was misled about the prospect for him returning to England. Much of his time in the Soviet Union was spent in sanitoria on the Black Sea. He died aged 55, having become ever more dependent on alcohol in his last years. His remains were interred in the family plot at St John the Evangelist Churchyard, West Meon, Hampshire. Icon Category:Guy Burgess Category:Spy Category:Espionage at Wars Category:WWI Category:United Kingdom's people